


Letters From Berlin

by spenshi



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Homesickness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 23:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14389440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spenshi/pseuds/spenshi
Summary: Newton keeps in touch with his family when he's shipped off to the Shatterdome. Jacob and Illia send care packages to the K-Science Lab.





	Letters From Berlin

**Author's Note:**

> The timeline in this one can seem a little shaky. Quite a bit of time passes between each letter.  
> Enjoy entertainment, baby.

_Dear Dr. Geiszler,_

_I hope this letter finds you well. I’ve never had to send anything to China before! It’s kind of exciting._

_How is Hong Kong? Have you settled in quite yet? I imagine the time difference may still be throwing you off a bit. Speaking of which, don’t forget to let us know what time of day is best to video chat. We miss your face already._

_We expect a letter back, of course. Send us pictures of your lab or something. Do you have to share it? Keep it tidy for them. Tell us everything._

_Regards,_

_Mr. Geiszler and Mr. Geiszler_

_Dear Dad and Uncle Illia,_

_You don’t have to call me Dr. Geiszler! Everyone here calls me that and I’m starting to forget my first name._

_I do have to share my lab, and you’ll never believe with who. Do you remember Hermann Gottlieb? He was the one I used to e-mail all the time a few years back. The one who I met and who promptly decided he didn’t like me. What are the odds I’d land here with him? He won’t let me call him Hermann, either._

_Everything is so formal here. You better not keep up the cordial letter shtick. I miss my family! I’m free to video chat any time after noon your time- That’s 6 o’clock here._

_Love,_

_Newton_

“You’re being awfully quiet, Doctor Geiszler. What’s that you’re writing?”

“I’m writing a letter back to my family,” Newt replied as he scribbled his signature at the bottom of the paper.

“A physical letter! How-“

“Quaint?” Newt interrupted, putting on his best accent. “Archaic?”

“I was going to say admirable, but I take it back.”

Newt laughed as he folded the letter, surprisingly neatly, and tucked it into a slightly yellowed envelope. “My family’s always had kinda a thing for doing stuff the old-fashioned way.”

Hermann side-eyed the large black boombox on his colleague’s side of the room. Scattered on and around it were mostly unlabeled CD cases, coated in varying degrees of dust. “I’ll say.”

“You’re just jealous you didn’t get real letters from me all those years ago,” Newt teased. He slid the letter into his top desk drawer for safekeeping, away from the slimy blue Kaiju entrails he then slapped onto the nearby steel table.

Hermann made a displeased face, at the comment or the Kaiju bits or both. “Don’t flatter yourself. As long as it keeps you quiet I’m sure you’ll find I don’t mind.”

“Aw, thanks, Herm!”

“That’s Doctor Gottlieb, thank you.” He pushed his glasses up his nose, the chain dangling near his sunken cheeks.

Newton didn’t reply. Instead he fished a small remote out of the pocket of his already-stained PPDC-issued lab coat and pointed it at the boombox. Discordant electric guitar immediately filled the lab, echoing off the cold metal walls. Over the roar, he could faintly hear the sound of Hermann’s cane clattering to the ground in surprise.

“What in God’s name-“

“It’s AC/DC, dude! Helps me work,” Newt replied, already elbow-deep in alien guts. “For Those About To Rock. Their best album. Don’t tell my dad I said that.”

“Would you _please_ turn it off?” Nothing about his tone of voice indicated any patience.

“Geez, sure, I forgot you’re no fun.”

Click. Silence.

“ _Thank you_.”

“I can’t believe I have to share a lab with you.”

“Believe me, I can’t either.”

 

 

 

 

_Dear Newt,_

_I’ve taken over most of the letter-writing responsibilities for now. Your father is pretty busy these days with who knows what. Never thought tuning pianos for a living would take so much time. I can’t complain though, he’s always kept my instruments sounding brand-new._

_I’m trying to figure out how to send a package to you. We’ve collected a few different things we think you’d like, but shipping from Berlin to Hong Kong is going to be expensive as hell. Do you think your dad will notice if I put it on his bill?_

_I know it’s a long ways off and the war is crazy, but I keep hoping you’ll come home for the holidays. Mostly because no one makes bread pudding the way you do. Do you think you could come home? Actually, don’t answer that. Let me dream._

_Expect a package here in the next few months. I swear I’ll figure it out._

_Your Favorite Uncle,_

_Illia_

         Newton woke one morning to the sound of someone knocking briskly at his bunk door. Still half-asleep, he slid out from under the covers and set his glasses crookedly on his nose. When he opened the door, there was Hermann, holding his cane to the door to knock again. In his other hand he held a rather large cardboard box that half-obscured his face.

         Hermann peeked around the side of the box to see a disheveled Newton in his boxers and a band tee. He wasn’t sure what band, but by now he knew AD/DC all too well, and was sure it wasn’t them. Before he could stare too long and decipher the t-shirt art, he averted his gaze and cleared his throat.

         “Firstly, you are late for work, _again_ ,” he started. “Secondly, this box was on _my_ desk, on top of _my_ very important work.”

         “Oh, shit, sorry man,” Newt apologized, his voice rough and as tired-sounding as he looked. Straightening his glasses, he checked the shipping label. Yep, that was for him. “Not my fault, though, let me make that clear. It must be the last names. Two German last names that start with G, pretty easy to mix up.”

         “Don’t let it happen again,” Hermann sighed. “There was no place on your side of the room to put it where it wouldn’t turn blue from Kaiju blood.”

         “I’ll be in to clean up in, uh, thirty minutes.”

         Hermann was too tired himself to argue. He supposed he would just let it slide that his lab partner was already almost an hour late. He had learned in the few months they had spent together in the Shatterdome thus far that arguing with him was almost always useless and just resulted in a lot of yelling over each other.

         “And I’m sure it wouldn’t inconvenience you to put on some trousers the next time you open your door.”

         Hermann turned and left, box still in his left hand. Newton made a face at him as he disappeared down the hallway.

 

         Thirty minutes later, Newton entered the lab, hair still wet from showering and coffee in one hand. He set the mug on his cluttered desk, next to where Hermann had cleared a spot for the package. He finished buttoning up his shirt before picking up the box and shaking it, listening to the noise like a kid on Christmas morning. The rattling earned half a second of a tired stare from Hermann over his shoulder as he scribbled away at his giant chalkboard.

         Newt grabbed a scalpel from the examination table, and after deeming it clean enough, he used it to slice into the packing tape. He was impatient in opening it, like he was impatient in most things, and mangled the box a bit in his effort to pry it open. He reached his hand in and pulled out a plastic bag.

         “Oh hell yeah!” He exclaimed, earning another stare. “Streusel from my favorite bakery back home!”

         He shoved his hand back into the box and fished around a bit. His hand hit hard plastic, and his face lit up.

         “Oh, man, no way!” His hand came up out of the box, holding a tiny keyboard with a tube attached. “My melodica!”

         “Your _what_?”

         Newton held up the instrument as Herman slowly climbed down from the ladder and retrieved his cane. “My melodica! Listen!”

         Newt stuck the loose end of the tube into his mouth, took a deep breath, and blew. The noise that came out was something akin to a harmonica. A wonderfully grating noise. Hermann groaned as Newton excitedly poked out a tune on the keyboard.

         “Excellent. Something else for you to hinder my work with.”

         “Any requests?” Newt joked.

         “I request that you play that thing in your own time,” Hermann groaned, letting his glasses fall to the end of their chain as he rubbed at his temples.

         “This is so great. There’s a letter in the box too!” He held the paper close to his face and read loud enough for his colleague to hear. “Dear Newt. I’ve sent you a few of your favorite things to keep you company in your work. Enclosed are three apple streusels from Gunter’s Frische Kuchen and your old melodica. Sorry I couldn’t fit your guitar in the box.”

         “ _I’m_ not.”

         “Hush.” He kept reading. “Shipping wasn’t as expensive as I thought, so expect a lot of these packages for as long as you’re away from us.”

         “Wonderful.”

         “Write back soon. Love, your coolest uncle, and also your dad.” Newt’s face broke into an unbridled smile. “God, I love these guys. I get breakfast from my favorite place back home!”

         “That sounds splendid for you,” Hermann droned, not looking up from his desk. He made a few notes on a paper before limping back to the chalkboard and copying down his adjustments.

         “Sure is. There’s a few here if you want some.”

         “I’m quite good, thank you.”

         “Suit yourself.”

         Newton spent the better part of the next hour neglecting to work as he sat at his desk and savored the pastries. They were a little stale, as one would expect, but they still reminded him of home and tasted just fine when washed down with the remainder of his coffee. He read the paper with his feet up on his desk, and every once in a while he would blow into the melodica, startling Hermann every time. To Hermann’s dismay, he recognized a few of the tunes.

 

 

 

 

 

_Dear Uncle Illia and also Dad,_

_Thank you so much for the package. Hermann wanted me to thank you specifically for the melodica. He loves it. I have the HR complaints to prove it._

_Things are going just about how you’d expect. Sometimes I forget how serious my work is. I never see these Kaiju alive, so sometimes I forget they ever were in the first place. Every time I see another attack on the news, I feel horrible and I try to work harder. It keeps me calm just to know you guys are safe inland. I think I work better on these things knowing they’ll never get to you._

_I wish I could send a package in return, but I don’t think you’d want anything I could get for you around here. Do you have any use for a giant sea monster cuticle, or half-used sticks of white chalk? No? Okay. Letters will have to do._

_Love,_

_Newton_

_Dear Newton,_

_Letters will do just fine. We just want to know how you’re doing! If anything crazy happens though, e-mail us. We don’t want to wait for super important information for the sake of our tradition._

_It’s starting to get colder here in Berlin. Does it get cold in Hong Kong? We can send your winter coat and gloves if you need them. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy what’s in this box!_

_Love,_

_Dad and Uncle Illia_

         Things were getting more intense in the Shatterdome. Newton had to wait until his work was done for the day before he could dig into his box. New specimen came in almost every day for him to examine, and he spent almost all his time in the lab now. It was no longer a nine to five job.

         Hermann was organizing his papers into neat stacks as Newt ripped into the box. They always appeared on Newt’s desk now, after his father began underlining his first name on the shipping label to avoid confusion.

         “Another care package?” Hermann almost laughed. “You’d think you were at sleep-away camp.”

         “Hey, man. My dad and uncle have a lot of love to give.” He pulled a shirt out of the box. “And I won’t argue with it! See? My old Eagles shirt!”

         Hermann rolled his eyes as Newt held the shirt to his face and inhaled deeply. He watched as Newt set the shirt aside and dove back into the box’s contents, stacking them on top of the shirt as he pulled them out. A book, a few CDs, a framed photo, individually packaged snacks from Germany and the States. Newt immediately unwrapped one of the snack cakes and held it in his mouth as he propped the photo up on the corner of his desk. Hermann could see two men and a small teenage boy in the slightly-wrinkled picture. He could tell from the glasses that the kid was a young Newton. He guessed that the two men were his father and uncle. They certainly did look like brothers, and they looked very proud of Newton.

         Hermann’s face screwed up a bit as he looked away. He wasn’t sure why the packages made him so… Angry? No, he wasn’t angry. He wasn’t upset about them. He wasn’t sure what they made him feel. Not jealous, not homesick. His family just wasn’t the type to keep in touch. His parents were very stiff and had three other children to keep tabs on, after all. He was sure there weren’t any family photos of all of them he could put on his desk anyway. It didn’t matter.

         “Twinkie?”

         Hermann choked. “I beg your pardon?”

         “Do you want a Twinkie?”

         Newt was waving around a long yellow snack cake, the wrapper glinting in the harsh fluorescent lights. At some point he had changed into the shirt his family had sent him. It was faded and thin from age, and was a little tight.

         “I’m perfectly fine, thank you.”

         “Not surprised,” Newt shrugged as he pulled off the crinkly cellophane and stuffed the whole Twinkie into his mouth in one go. Hermann must’ve made a disgusted face, because Newt shot back a shit-eating grin, a ring of crumbs and cream around his mouth.

         Hermann slid some papers carefully into a file, tucked it under his left arm, and exited the lab for the night in a huff.

 

 

 

 

 

_Dear Dad and Uncle Illia,_

_It doesn’t get cold in Hong Kong, at least not like it does at home. Some of the people who come from warmer climates are already bundling up. The Kaidonovskys have been wearing tank tops this whole time. Sometimes this big mix of people from all over can be really funny. Just the differences between them all, I guess._

_Hermann comes from the way-south of Bavaria, almost Austria, and sometimes I can even see cultural differences between us. Well, actually I can’t tell if it’s cultural difference or if he’s just uppity. Probably the uppity part. Speaking of, for a guy from a ski town you’d think he could handle the weather a little better, but the guy has already caught a cold this season. He’s been sneezing and coughing all day every day lately. And pardon my language Dad but he’s got a fucking handkerchief. A handkerchief! I’d make fun of him for it to his face but I already tried once and he about beat me down with his cane. Anyway, if I get sick and die, make sure everyone knows it’s all his fault._

_I’ve got to try and get some work done now. I’ve got a ton of samples to analyze if I can just focus through Hermann’s nonstop hacking. The attacks have been getting closer and closer together. I feel like I don’t have any downtime at all lately. If I don’t write as often, it’s not because I forgot about you. I promise._

_Love,_

_Newt_

 

         “Package for you,” Tendo Choi said as he passed Newton in the halls.

         “Oh, awesome,” Newt beamed, quickening his pace to match Tendo’s. “I was just on my way to the mess hall for coffee. Where are you headed?”

         “Same, as long as I don’t get called to duty halfway through my meal.” He laughed, but it was a tired laugh. “Y’know, you really oughta eat some real food in the mornings. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, after all.”

         “Yeah, yeah.”

         In a rare moment of calm and quiet, Newton sat across from Tendo at a table and drank his coffee. Tendo had gotten him an extra plate of sausage and eggs, and as soon as he dug in, he realized he really was hungry. It was hard for him to listen to his body, especially in these recent chaotic weeks. Tendo smiled as Newt finished his eggs and downed the rest of his coffee. He walked with him to square away his plate and silverware, and Newt took the opportunity to refill his mug. Tendo filled four of his own.

         “How goes things on the bridge?” Newton asked, blowing on the steaming coffee.

         “LOCCENT,” Tendo half-smirked. “This isn’t Star Trek.”

         “It is a little bit.” Newt smiled back tiredly, a knowing and familiar look between most people who inhabit the Shatterdome. Exhaustion. “How goes things in LOCCENT?”

         “God. Disheartening. It sucks, if I’m being honest with you. Every time a vitals monitor flatlines I can’t help but feel responsible.” He sighed, a defeated and shuddering sound. “We lose so many people, and I know every single one of them.”

         “That’s rough,” Newt said, unable to think of a better reply.

         “It is. But I know if I wasn’t up there in command, I would go crazy not knowing everything that was going on. I belong up there.”

         “You do. No one can do that shit like you do.”

         Tendo gave half a smile and chugged the content of one of the mugs, refilling it immediately. He gave Newton a firm pat on the back. “Thanks, bud. Duty calls. Don’t forget to pick up that package on your way to the lab.”

         “Sure thing,” Newt called after Tendo as he disappeared out of the large mess hall door.

 

         When Newt entered the lab with his package, Hermann was in the middle of a coughing fit, doubled over at the foot of his ladder. He gripped the wooden rungs of it with one hand, his cane in the other. Newt set his package down on the desk and kept an eye on his lab partner as he straightened up and held his handkerchief to his mouth.

         “Haven’t they sent you everything already?” Hermann said in lieu of a greeting, his voice grated from sickness. “It’s like they’re moving you out for the first time.”

         “They would never,” Newt replied, slicing along the tape. He peered inside.

         “So what did they send this time? The kitchen sink?”

         Newt looked back over his shoulder, then reached down into the box. He crossed the lab, over the clearly drawn dividing line, to Hermann’s desk.

         “Uh, I think this is for you, man.”

         Hermann looked up, confused. “For me?”

         Newt set the medicine on the shiny clean metal of Hermann’s desk. He placed a jar of some sort of powder down next to it. There was a ribbon tied around the neck of it.

         “For your cold,” Newton said, sounding just as dumbfounded as Hermann was. “The jar is my dad’s favorite hot cocoa mix recipe. He makes it himself. He used to make the cocoa for me all the time when I was sick as a kid.”

         Hermann’s face was soft for a moment, an expression Newt had never seen, before he hardened back up. “Have you been complaining about my illness in your letters home?”

         Newt grinned. “Maybe a little.”

         “I’ll have you know I’m just particularly susceptible to the common cold.” He looked back down at the medicine and cocoa mix. “They didn’t have to do this for me… Tell them thank you, would you?”

         Newt cocked his head at the sincerity of his partner’s voice as he watched him tuck the gifts away in his bag. “Sure thing.”

 

         The next morning, Hermann’s coughing had lessened, and he had a hot cup of cocoa on the corner of his desk.

 

 

 

 

 

_Dear Newton,_

_I know you said it doesn’t get too cold over there, but we’re sending over more cocoa anyway, along with a few of your favorite mugs. You’re probably drinking tons of coffee over there anyway, and God knows you won’t do your dishes, so you’ll need them. We sent some extra coffee grounds too. The good kind. I feel like communal breakroom coffee is only one tier above hotel coffee, and our boy deserves better than that._

_Hope you’ve been doing well. We miss you so, so much. We saw you on TV the other day and we’re so proud of what you’re doing. I can’t believe we can keep better tabs on you by just watching the news and reading the paper. You’re famous! It’s your dream come true._

_Love,_

_Your favorite uncle and your proudest dad_

         Newt reached into the newspaper-packed box, pulling out mug after mug, tightly wrapped to keep them safe on the trip. His face seemed to light up more and more with each mug he unwrapped, setting them in a neat lineup on his desk. A tacky mug with a periodic table joke, an MIT mug from his college days, one shaped like a skull, one like Godzilla, one like a guitar. Hermann wasn’t sure how he could drink out of such non-functional cups. Godzilla’s spikes threatened to gouge out his eyes as he lifted it to his mouth.

         As promised, at the bottom of the box was a few more jars of cocoa mix and some bags of coffee grounds. The smell seeped out of the packaging and overpowered the clean chemical stench of the lab, making Newt smile fondly. His relaxed expression turned to confusion, however, when out of the box he pulled a bulk package of Earl Grey teabags.

         “What the-“ Newt mumbled, holding the tea at arm’s length as if to see it better. “They know I don’t drink tea.”

         “Ah! That would be for me, actually,” he heard Hermann say from the other side of the lab, the clicking of his cane signaling his approach.

         “For you?” Newt laughed incredulously. “Get the fuck outta here!”

         “No need for that language,” his lab partner rolled his eyes as he snatched the box of tea with his free hand. “I, ah, wrote your family back to thank them personally for the cold medicine and hot cocoa. I didn’t trust you to deliver my gratitude.”

         “Rude. So you just stole my home address like a stalker?”

         “Your packages are still put on my desk half the time. Your father and uncle deserved thanks for what they did for me.”

         “They’re just naturally nice people, no need to make out with the ground they walk on.”

         Hermann’s nose wrinkled in disgust at the butchered figure of speech. “And I am naturally cordial. I mailed them back.”

         “And so they gave you tea?”

         Hermann retreated to his side of the room, tucking the gift away in his bag to take to his quarters later. “Well, actually, we’ve kept in touch since.”

         Newt’s mouth fell open and he sat back on his desk dramatically, as if his legs had given out from the shock, nearly knocking over his newly reacquired mugs. “So you’re like, pen pals with my dad and uncle now?”

         “Not pen pals, I suppose, we speak mostly through e-mail.”

         “You got my dad’s fucking e-mail address?” Newt shouted. There was an edge to his disbelief that almost made Hermann feel as if he had done something wrong. “What, so you talk with him more often than I do now?”

         Hermann’s face turned stern. It was the face he wore during their regular screaming matches, and Newt knew that’s where they were headed. “There’s nothing stopping you from calling your family every once in a while! From e-mailing them yourself or sending them a text every now and again! I’m sure they’d appreciate it!”

         “Oh, so now you know what they’d appreciate, huh? You know them real well now, do you? You’ve been chummy with them for the past, what, two months?” Newt stood from where he leaned on the desk, his posture hunched forward. Defensive.

         “For God’s sake, Doctor Geiszler, I’m not responsible for making sure you don’t accidentally excommunicate yourself from your family for lack of contact!”

         “Don’t you ‘Doctor Geiszler’ me right now, since you’re soooo friendly with the rest of my family-“

         “Just e-mail your family! I have the address if you never bothered to know it yourself!”

         “Letters are our thing! This was supposed to be our thing!”

         “I didn’t _steal_ your family away from you, you absolute lunatic-“

         “Why don’t you ask for a weekly allowance next time you write them, huh? Just because your own folks won’t fucking give you the time of day doesn’t mean you can mooch off of mine!”

         As soon as the words left him, Newton knew it was a mistake. The silence that followed immediately filled his chest like lead. It felt like when he was a stupid college kid, inhaling sulfur hexafluoride with the other science majors, feeling it drag their lungs down to their feet, slow their voice like molasses. His eyes wide behind his glasses, he held his hands up tentatively, half in defense, half in apology.

         “Shit, Hermann, I didn’t mean- God, no, I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry-“

         Hermann’s mouth was a tight line. His knuckles were white on his cane. “You’ve said quite enough, Doctor Geiszler.”

         Newt watched as Hermann pulled on his parka mechanically, slinging his bag over his shoulder. He tried to apologize again, but only fragments of his words made it out. Unable to speak, he watched as Hermann pushed the doors open briskly and left for the night, leaving Newton alone in an imbalanced lab.

 

 

 

 

 

_Dear Dad and Uncle Ilia,_

_I fucked up really bad. Really, really bad. I said something I shouldn’t have to Hermann and he hasn’t spoken to me since. It’s only been three days, but that’s still too much. He’s supposed to argue with me. He’s supposed to yell at me. I deserve it._

_I don’t know why I got so defensive. He was right, his writing you doesn’t mean you stop writing me. I guess I just got jealous. I’m not used to sharing your attention. I was fated to be a greedy only child, I guess. I’m just afraid that if you find something more interesting, you’ll-_

         Newt pulled the pen off the paper with a frustrated growl, snatching the stationary up and crumpling it into a ball. It’s just work stress, he told himself. A thirty-something man shouldn’t be putting his energy into fighting for his family’s attention. He’s an accomplished scientist, one of the smartest people in the world, and a grown man, goddammit.

The fact of the matter was it wasn’t important _why_ he said what he did. He had said it anyway, and he knew it was based in truth. Hermann’s family didn’t want to keep in touch with their son, their brother. Not like everyone else’s families did while they were here. Newt knew this because he saw Hermann slip a letter to Garmisch-Partenkirchen into the mail slot not long after they came to Hong Kong, and the only letters that ever appeared on his desk were the ones he wrote himself and didn’t bother to send because he knew they wouldn’t get a response.

         It was a shitty thing to even fathom saying to a coworker. But thinking about his dad and uncle speaking more frequently with his colleague who didn’t even like him? Sending him gifts and e-mailing about who knows what? It boiled the greed he tried so hard to keep a lid on. The need for attention. The need for approval, for love, for confirmation that his family still cared about him and thought about him even though he was so far away.

Deep down, he knew where the root of the initial issue was. He couldn’t even remember his mom’s face because she’d left him so soon after his birth to keep travelling the world, singing for crowds of stuck-up rich people. She had told his dad that she would visit every once in a while, to see the child she helped bring into the world. But it seemed that, as soon as the kid was out of her sight, she forgot all about that empty promise. Her job was more important than him, than having a son, and he was fine with that. He didn’t need a mother to raise him. He was raised just fine without her, and he loved his dad and his uncle more than anything. He was fine with that! He was fine with that.

         Mostly he just couldn’t believe he let decades-old mommy issues cause a falling-out in a high-stakes professional relationship. In fact, holy shit, in thinking long and hard about it for the first time, he acted like a jealous elementary school kid learning that his crush had played house with another boy. The world was ending, for fuck’s sake. With a half-groan, half-sigh, he plucked the crumpled paper off the floor, dropped it into the trash can, and left for work.

 

         “Hermann,” he said as soon as his feet touched the shiny lab tile. The place smelled of Earl Grey and bleach.

         “Oh, speaking now, are we?” Hermann quipped flatly, not looking up from his tablet screen. There was a cup of steaming tea on his desk.

         “Okay, first of all, _you_ were the one who wasn’t speaking with _me_ , and secondly-“ He stopped himself. He wasn’t here to start another argument. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I suck at apologies. I didn’t mean what I said. I have some deep-rooted familial issues I obviously need to work out. Same as anyone else here. Please yell at me about math.”

         “And that’s supposed to quell my anger.”

         Newt sighed. He flopped down into his desk chair, letting his bag and coat clatter to the floor, contents skittering out of the pockets. “No. You’re allowed to be angry. In fact, you usually are.”

         From across the room, he swore he could see the corner of Hermann’s thin lips quirk up. Hope.

         “Mostly, it’s like, I can’t believe I got into a fight with you about my family? You can keep writing them if you really want, I don’t care anymore. It doesn’t matter. We’re supposed to be working on saving the fucking world, so like, let’s do that instead.”

         Hermann set his tablet down purposefully, the edges parallel to the desktop. He grabbed his cane and eased himself out of his chair, turning toward his equation-filled chalkboard. At first, Newt was afraid that he wasn’t going to say anything, watching as he pulled himself carefully up the ladder and scribbled a few adjustments. But then, after circling a couple of newly found solutions, he worked his way back to the floor and turned toward Newt, a soft but confident smirk on his face.

         “Yes. Let’s.”

 

         After that, packages usually contained something for Hermann as well. Little knick-knacks, things to remind him of Germany. A CD of classical music for Newt’s boombox. A pack of colored chalk shaped like crayons (Newton laughed at Hermann’s disdain. A few days later the chalkboard was meticulously color-coded).

         Work got harder. Kaiju came faster. They got stronger. Newt and Hermann got more and more exhausted. It was around this time that they thrifted an old beat-up couch for the lab, placing it perfectly center over the dividing line. More often than not, one of them would crash and spend the night in the lab, so they might as well make it comfortable. Time moved so fast and ran together so badly that when the holidays came around, the only thing to clue them in was the gaudily-wrapped box that was left in front of the lab’s locked doors one morning.

         “Oh, shit. Is it December?”

         “It has been for a while, Newton.”

         Newton.

         He looked down at the package. There was a shiny golden bow just above the shipping label, on which it was addressed not to a specific person, but simply to the Hong Kong Shatterdome’s K-Science Laboratory. And, by extension, its only two occupants.

         Newt lugged the box into the lab, dropping it onto the deflated cushions of the threadbare couch. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a thick stack of new papers on his desk, and a cluster of fresh biohazard containment tubs on the steel table. Still, he gestured first to the present on the couch.

         “Well? Shall we?”

         Hermann gave a lopsided grin. Usually Newt just ripped into the packages, taking what was his and giving Hermann his share later. Maybe this was different. This felt like being a kid, instilling some sense of magical unity in Newton’s usually pugnacious attitude. So much so that he almost forgot completely about the new samples as he excitedly motioned again toward Hermann to help him unwrap it.

         Together the two of them removed the shiny paper and sliced through the tape. Newt tossed festive tissue paper over his shoulder as he dug through for the contents. Once the paper concealing it was gone, there were two neatly-folded sweaters lying in the box side-by-side, each with a nametag attached.

         “Oh, man,” Newt smiled so hard it was audible when he spoke. “They haven’t gone this all-out since I was a kid.”

         He pulled his sweater out of the box and held it up against his frame, eclipsing his blue-stained button-up. Peering down at it, he could see a blue and white Christmas tree with a six-pointed star for a topper.

         “This is amazing!” He beamed, immediately pulling it over his clothes, tag still dangling from the hem. “Check yours, check yours!”

         Hermann reached down and pulled the sweater from the box, leaning back to splay it across his chest with his one free hand. Filling the entire front was a huge menorah knit into the fabric. Newt laughed aloud.

“Wait, holy shit, dude!” He exclaimed, examining the sweater closer. “Dude! I think this thing lights up!”

Sure enough, after patting down the sweater, there was most certainly a battery box tucked inside a hidden inner pocket. With a flick of the switch, the eight candles lit up with an artificial yellow glow, the color of the fluid in the nearby brain tanks.

“Hoooooooly shit.”

Looking up, Hermann’s face was giddy too. Newt was struck. This was the first time he had ever seen him really, really smile. He wished he could take a picture just to make sure he wasn’t imagining it.

“Put it on! Put it on!”

Hermann looked as if he was about to argue, but seeing Newton in his hybrid Christmas and Hanukkah sweater, practically vibrating with excitement, he couldn’t find it in himself to say no. Leaning his cane against the side of the couch, with Newt next to him with an arm ready to lend support, he slipped into the sweater, the lights still glowing. It fit perfectly. Seeing Hermann like this, gaudy sweater on and smiling with his teeth, Newton wondered for the first time why he was ever angry at his family for making Hermann happy too.

The rest of the box’s contents included cookies, a mini Christmas tree, an electric menorah, battery-powered string lights, a very tiny but playable harp, an old scuffed-up dreidel, and several holiday heirlooms that made no sense to Hermann but delighted Newt nearly to sentimental tears.

Newton decided work could wait as he set the decorations up around the lab, putting the dreidel and Christmas tree on the corner of his desk, and the menorah on Hermann’s. Finding no better place to put them, he laid the string lights over a tank containing the remnants of a secondary Kaiju brain, illuminating the contents in an eerie, uneven glow.

Even after they got to work, Hermann scratching away at the chalkboard and Newt sorting through his new specimen, there was an almost homey feeling to the lab for the first time. Like they belonged here. Like the two halves of the room on either side of the line were harmonious parts of a system. Newt hummed holiday songs as he worked, and Hermann couldn’t even find it in himself to be annoyed. Surrounded by dead monster parts, dwarfed by numbers meant to solve the apocalypse, they were happy.

That was the last deep breath they took before the day the world was supposed to end.

 

 

 

 

 

_Dear Dad and Uncle Ilia,_

_I’m sorry I haven’t written in like three months. You probably already know why if you read the news. Things are happening too frequently to have very much downtime anymore. Letters are becoming a big hassle, what with physically writing them, getting my hands on an envelope, and shipping them out of here. I barely have time for pee breaks now. It sucks. But I’m still doing well, I promise. Just a little down in the dumps, but rest assured your boy and his awesome science are gonna save the world still. Love you and miss you bunches._

_Love, Newt_

         His time was up just as he finished the letter. Hermann entered the lab, punctual as usual, signaling the start of working hours.

         “You’re here early,” he remarked with no shortage of surprise.

         “Yeah, I figured I would knock out another letter to the folks. I don’t think there’ll be much time for that soon.”

         He heard Hermann sigh in agreement as he sealed the letter away, not looking up from his desk. Just letting his eyes rest and be idle against the scuffed gray steel of the desktop. He had forfeited his morning coffee for letter-writing time, and he could already feel it, drifting dangerously close to sleep as he sat motionless, listening to the sounds of Hermann setting up his space for the day. He zoned out, mind going as close to blank as it could manage, preventing him from hearing the footsteps and the clack of the cane as Hermann approached him. He was only startled out of his trance as something was placed on the corner of his desk with a soft clink. A plate of food, he realized, as his eyes came to focus on it.

         “What’s this all about?” He asked tiredly, pushing his glasses up to balance at the top of his head while he rubbed the fatigue from his eyes.

         “Breakfast,” Hermann replied matter-of-factly. As if his bringing Newt food was a common occurrence.

         “Uh-huh.”

         Hermann teetered uncertainly against his cane, missing his window to comfortably walk away without saying anything. He watched as his lab partner brought his glasses back down to his nose and slumped ever-so-slightly back into his chair.

         “Your father told me you often forget to eat,” Hermann admitted. His voice gentle in the way one would be scolded by a teacher in primary school. “He wanted to make sure you’re healthy. He and your uncle… They’re rather worried about you.”

         Newton scoffed fondly. “So they’ve found a way to coddle me from five thousand miles away. Go figure.”

         “I’m merely the messenger,” the other man called over his shoulder as he again crossed the room to his side. “But they’re not wrong. I do believe I’ve never seen you eat anything but candy bars and snack cakes.”

         “I do eat, though,” came the indignant retort.

         “Rarely. Please try the breakfast, Newton. The new samples will be arriving shortly.”

         Newt sighed and pulled the mess hall plate toward him, plucking the fork that had been balanced along the edge. He poked at the stack of wheaty-looking pancakes. They seemed as if they had never risen when being cooked, like they were still somehow a puddle of matter waiting to become food. It made him miss home to think about the way pancakes were supposed to look. Thick and golden and fluffy, and poured into a fun shape with a charming lack of artistic talent. Still, with a quick glance back over to his partner, he cut into the stack and tried to make himself feel hungry.

         With effort he managed to eat half of the pancakes, and all of a rather small orange. There was no wrong way to make fruit, of course, since nature did it herself. But still, everything in the Shatterdome tasted off to him somehow. Colorless. He held a torn piece of the pocked rind at arm’s length, gazing behind it to the kaiju skin specimen displayed in a glass case on the wall. The textures were so similar it made him almost believe that wherever the kaiju came from had to adhere to the same inalienable laws of nature. But he knew that couldn’t be true.

 

 

 

 

 

_Dear Newt,_

_We know you’re very busy. We won’t expect letters back, just so you know. We’re happy to just send gifts to our rock star every now and then. You can always email us if it makes things easier. I know it doesn’t have that same charm we love, but it’s faster, and I’d be willing to sacrifice luxury to keep in touch with you. Ask your buddy Hermann for the email address._

_Big package with this one. I know you told us not to send it, but we can’t be sure anymore how long you’ll be gone, and it’s just too difficult to picture you without it._

_Love,_

_Dad and Uncle Ilia_

         Newton held the guitar snug against his chest. Hermann watched from afar, the aching fondness evident on Newt’s face from across the lab. Hermann would have never pegged him as an acoustic type of guy, but the guitar looked as if it fit over his knees like a puzzle piece. There were intricate designs painted around the hole and the pickguard, and Hermann could swear he saw a few rogue stickers plastered to the back of the thing where it pressed against Newt’s stomach.

         “Shipping this thing musta cost a fortune,” Newt remarked, equal parts homesick and happy.

         Hermann didn’t say anything, just listened with a healthy amount of disdain as Newt began to pluck away at the thing, tuning the strings back as he went along. It sounded rich and amplified in the cold tile walls of the lab. Bouncing off of every surface, a louder and more beautiful sound than you would expect to hear from it, than you would expect to hear in this unnaturally lit lab. So very Newton.

         Newt tucked the guitar under his bed that night for lack of a better place to store it in the tiny cell block of his assigned dormitory. Every once in a while he would press himself against the cold cement floor and fish the instrument out from the dust-laden cave under the bed. His fingers were stiff with use and he fumbled with remembering how to play most of his favorite songs. Still, if he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine Berlin.

 

 

 

 

 

         Hermann placed a plate on Newt’s desk again one afternoon.

         “Pops tell you to feed me again?” He teased, but it came with no fire behind it.

         “No, not this time.”

         Newt studied the plate. On it was a sizable heap of some sort of meat, stewed in a familiar-smelling sauce. It sat next to a small mound of poorly-mashed potatoes. He met Hermann’s eye.

         “You sure they aren’t making you into my nanny?”

         “Don’t be ridiculous.” Hermann stared at the ground. “You always say how much you miss homemade food. German food. Sauerbraten in particular, if I was hearing your countless homesick rants correctly.”

         Newt’s mouth fell open with a wondrous smile. “You brought me sauerbraten. What the fuck, man?”

         “Do you not want it?”

         “No, dude, that was a good what the fuck!” Newt grabbed at the fork with trembling excitement. “That was a very enthusiastic, very pleasantly surprised what the fuck!”

         “Don’t be quick to flatter yourself. I’ve been feeling rather homesick myself lately, and my family has a special recipe they use.”

         “Holy shit, you MADE this?”

         “Don’t act so surprised.”

         “You’re so domestic, Herms,” Newt teased with a well-practiced wink.

         “Doctor Gottlieb will do just fine, thank you.”

         But his fond smile said otherwise.

 

 

 

 

 

        

 

         Hermann would bring Newt food almost every day after that, making a habit to just get two servings whenever he grabbed a meal for himself. Still, he watched Newt grow skeletal as the weeks passed, his cheeks sinking in and his shirts getting looser. His eyes were dark behind his glasses, and Hermann had no reason to doubt that he went days at a time without sleeping.

He set the plate on his desk. Breakfast today was a banana, a slice of buttered toast, a few strips of slightly overcooked bacon, scrambled eggs that needed some salt, and a carton of milk that reminded Hermann of primary school.

The clink of the plate hitting the desktop didn’t catch Newton’s attention like it normally did. In fact, the man had his arms folded in front of him and his head resting in them, face down. Hermann smiled in shocked relief at the fleeting idea that Newt might finally be getting some rest. Just to be sure, he poked at his partner’s shoulder.

“Newton. Breakfast.”

Newt’s back heaved with a shuddering sigh, and his hands disappeared beneath his face before he sat up all too cheerily and gave a practiced grin. His eyes were red-rimmed and his lashes stuck together in spidery clumps.

He had been crying, and he wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding it.

“Oh shit, thanks, Herms!” He chirped, not making eye contact as he reached out for the food. He tore open the milk carton messily and took a few performative gulps, but touched nothing else. When he noticed Hermann wasn’t leaving, he began to peel the banana for good measure.

Hermann wasn’t sure where their boundaries lie. It used to be as clear as the physical line down the center of the lab. This was okay, but that was not. Personal remarks were limited to snarky quips only. But it wasn’t that simple these days. As the war closed in on them, it was only natural to look out for one another, and that blurred the once-crisp boundaries. It left Hermann wondering if he should say something. Ask if something was wrong. Pat him on the back reassuringly? God, what did people do in this situation? As he weighed his options, it became apparent to him that Newton wouldn’t want him to say anything. Crying was not very Doctor Newton Geiszler, Biologist and Rock Star, and he was very firm in upholding his image. So he left it be, gently setting a few packets of salt on the desk before giving a half-smile and diving into his math for the day.

 

 

 

 

 

The stress reached critical mass when Hermann entered the lab one morning to find Newt hunched over at his desk, crying silently into his hands, and didn’t stop when he noticed his partner there. Hermann could hear the hitched breath and sniffles bouncing off the cold tile walls. It made his chest feel like bruising. When he set the food on the desk (cereal, toast, and orange juice today), Newton looked up at him and it was the most broken face Hermann had ever seen. This was not a situation one could let be.

“Newton,” he said, his voice softer than he meant it to be.

“How do you do it, man?” Came the wavering reply.

“Do what?”

“All of it. Without batting an eyelash. It doesn’t get to you. I can’t do it. I can’t do it.”

“Oh, dear,” Hermann sighed, quickly glancing around for a chair to pull up alongside the desk, comfortably bringing himself to his partner’s level. “Do you think this doesn’t stress me?”

A sigh. “I know it’s gotta burn you out too-“

“Do you think I’m not afraid?”

Newt’s watery eyes met his, and it broke his heart.

“Are you?” Newt asked.

“More than anything,” Hermann admitted. “Scared shitless.”

Newton gave a tired laugh at the colloquialism, earning him a half-smile in return. “What’ve you got to be scared about? You just crunch numbers all day.”

Hermann’s face fell a bit, but he was used to being discredited. “Those numbers are the most important thing I’ve ever had to do. When the Kaiju emerge from the breach, when they make landfall… Whether or not a city has been evacuated, whether or not their people will survive it… That all rides on these numbers. That all comes down to me.”

“Oh, shit,” Newt said simply. He’d never thought of it that way. Thinking about it now, of course it made sense. Hermann’s work was all about predicting as accurately as he can when an event will occur, how many, and at what categories. City evacuation depended on it. Which Jaegers to send out depended on it. It was the foundation of their smooth-running operation. The watertight seal on this struggling yet unsinkable ship.

“I don’t believe I could handle pressure any higher than this,” said Hermann truthfully. “This is my threshold, I’m afraid. It’s a wonder I haven’t gone mad.”

Newt wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I think I am, man. I think I’m going crazy.”

Despite his better judgement, Hermann’s hand reached out and landed gently on Newton’s shoulder. The air became rigid with something new.

“Newton Geiszler, you’ve been crazy this entire time. I’ll be damned if this is the thing to crack you.”

And goddamnit, Newton smiled. He smiled with teeth through the tears and he leaned against the steadfast hand on his shoulder and he huffed with soggy laughter.

“Can’t argue with that.”

There was a moment in which the boundaries were once again unclear, but to both of them. For a second they looked at each other from closer than they’d ever seen the other, and the line through the lab wasn’t there, and they were smiling, and his hand was on his shoulder. And then Hermann broke the gaze to push himself up slowly from the chair and reach over to grab the glass of orange juice and press it into Newton’s shaking hands.

Hermann left the tense cloud they had created and settled in at his own desk as Newt slowly drained the orange juice and began picking away at the cereal.

“I thought I had painted myself into a corner,” Newton said finally, strength returning to his voice.

“And how’s that?”

“I thought I’d run out of options. But now I know what I’ve gotta do.”

         As cryptic as that was, Hermann merely smiled, and was content in having no idea what the hell Newton Geiszler meant.

 

 

 

 

 

         There was no way Hermann would have guessed this.

         Newt was seizing on the floor against the side of his own desk, a shabbily-made PONS cap balancing on his head. Hermann heard himself cry out, and he ran to the man’s side and collapsed on the floor next to him, leg be damned.

         “Newton!” He hissed, taking his partner’s shaking head in his hands, trying to figure out what the fuck one does in this situation. He slapped at the PONS cap until it disengaged and fell to the floor, and then he lay Newton in the recovery position, taking off his own cardigan and balling it up under Newt’s head.

         For a few agonizing minutes, Hermann Gottlieb sat and watched as his friend lay convulsing on the lab floor. Little noises escaped Newt’s mouth as he seized, and blood was streaming steadily from his left nostril. Hermann kept a hand on the junction between Newton’s shoulder and neck, half in an attempt to steady him, half to monitor his pulse thrumming wildly through his jugular. Just as Hermann began to feel like there was no coming back from this, Newton took in a huge gasp of air, held it, let it out, and lay still. Stiff, and with a few residual contractions working their way out of his system, but still.

         When he opened his eyes, Hermann let out a breath of his own. Newt blinked, then looked around with a growing franticness, trying to scramble into a sitting position.

         “Easy, easy-“ Hermann warned, hand pressing against Newt’s chest. “What is your name?”

         “I did it. I fucking did it. I fucking did it! Holy shit-“

         “God’s sake, did what? Tell me your name so I know you haven’t gone completely mental!”

         Newt reached out suddenly with shaking hands, gripping painfully onto Hermann’s shoulders. “I’m Doctor Newton fucking Geiszler, man, and I just made fucking _history_.”

         Unfortunately, that was the end of his lucidity. Just as Hermann was about to inquire further, Newton went limp against him and fell back, cardigan cushioning his head as it thunked against the unforgiving floor. Hermann stayed over him, watching his eyes go in and out of focus, watching him shiver like a frostbitten madman. As soon as he seemed well enough to move, Hermann helped him into a chair and fixed him a glass of water. He asked him a few more questions, fetched the Marshal, and stood by as his cognizance returned to him. The things Newt described to Pentecost shook Hermann to his core, and with Newton’s bloodshot eye and frazzled nerves, he expected him to be a little freaked out too. But even through all of it, Hermann saw a crazed, triumphant smile on Newton’s lips.

 

 

 

 

 

_Mr. Jacob Geiszler and Mr. Illia Geiszler,_

_If his impulse decisions and reckless ideas are anything to go off of, I would say that Newton has made a full recovery. He’s doing quite well, but the Marshal took no time in putting him back to work. They sent him off alone into Hong Kong for a reason I can’t legally disclose, and he was more than happy to go, not two days after having a fit on the floor. I think I may have been mistaking his lack of sanity for brilliance this entire time._

_Regardless, do tell me how things are in Germany. How do they take the war effort there? Though I have no logical reason to worry, please let me know if there is any ill news coming out of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. I hope you are all getting on well too._

_Best regards,_

_h. gottlieb_

_Dear Dr. Gottlieb,_

_That’s our boy. He’ll be fine, we know it. Once, when he was nine, he broke his arm after falling off a bike, and as soon as he got home from getting a cast on, he was out playing baseball with his friends. That’s just the way he’s always been, but we know it’s hard not to worry about him sometimes._

_Germany’s doing the best we can. What with being so inland, the war feels far-off. Still, a lot of community centers are making a big effort to collect and send off care packages, food and stuff like that. We do our best to pitch in. It’s a little closer to our hearts for some reason._

_We heard about the double event. The news said you predicted it without breaking a sweat. We couldn’t help but feel a little proud of you, too._

_Warmly,_

_Jacob and Illia_

         “Are you sure you want to do this?”

         “Fortune favors the brave.”

         “Ah, yes, of course.”

         The two of them sat rod-straight on the K-Science couch. It would be a matter of minutes before Marshal Pentecost would show up and order them onto transport, down to the newly fallen Kaiju for Newton to drift with it. As if it was no big deal.

         Newton flipped open his laptop on the ottoman. He punched around on the keys until the screen was showing a slow attempted connection to somewhere far away.

         Two faces appeared on the screen.

         “Dad!” Newton exclaimed, and he sounded like a child. “Uncle Illia!”

         “Newton!” They replied with equal enthusiasm.

         The three of them began chatting at Geiszler speed. Hermann lost them, his mind drifting off to an impossible equation he was dreaming up that would solve whether or not this drift would kill Newton.

         “And who’s that there with you?”

         “Oh, yeah, this is Hermann!”

         The two men on the screen moved closer to the camera, as if it would help them see Hermann better. Their glasses glinted with reflection. They looked so much like Newton. Hermann wondered if that’s what Newt would look like when he was older.

         “That’s him, huh?” Illia smiled. “I imagined you differently, son!”

         Hermann was taken aback by the endearment. “Is that so?”

         “Yeah, well, with the way you talked, and Newt mentioned you walk with a cane, we kinda figured-“

         “We thought you were kinda old,” Jacob finished with a laugh.

         “Hardly,” Hermann replied, only slightly defensive.

         “So you two are almost the same age!” Jacob observed. “So, are you best friends then?”

         Hermann laughed at the notion and had a snide comment loaded, but Newt interrupted him with a sarcastic, “Oh, hell yeah. He loves me.”

         “And your guitar. And your melodica. And your thousands of loud rock CDs.”

         “We’ll send Tylenol next time,” Illia joked.

         The laughter faded across 5,000 miles. They all knew that they could try to be lighthearted as much as they wanted, but it wasn’t going to change things. It wasn’t going to hide the elephant in the room.

         “So you’re leaving soon, huh,” Jacob said softly.

         “Yeah, that’s right,” his son replied, and their voices were so similar.

         “What is it you’re going to do?”

         “I’m gonna drift with it.”

         “I won’t pretend to know what that means, but I get the implications. The danger that’s implied. You… Will be careful. Won’t you, _schatzi_.”

         “Yes, Dad. I promise.”

         “It’s almost over. You can come home soon.”

         “I hope so.”

         There was a moment of silence on both ends of the line, where the four of them gazed just past their monitors and into the distance. Thinking. Waiting. Knowing their time would be up soon but not wanting to end the call just yet. Newt stared teary-eyed at his family’s faces. There were footsteps approaching the lab door.

         “Hey,” Jacob finally said. “We’re really proud of you okay? We’re proud of you both.”

         Hermann was speechless. He smiled lopsidedly, gently, and the two strangers smiled back.

         The door to the lab swung open.

         “Time to go, gentlemen.”

 

 

 

 

 

         As Hermann watched Newt scramble over the fallen Kaiju, sticking makeshift drift technology into its skull and knowing the inevitable next step, it made him feel like something was grinding his insides to bits. The dread was undeniable, and as Newt hopped down from the thing’s snout, it was evident that he was nervous too. He held the drift initiation button in his shaking hand. He had to shout to be heard over the ruckus of Hannibal’s pit crew, and that just made his uncertainty all the more apparent.

         Hermann was never one for spontaneous, last minute decisions, but hell. There’s a first time for everything.

         “I’ll go with you.”

         Newton stared dumbfounded through blue-smeared glasses.

         “You’re serious? You would do that for me?” He bit his tongue and corrected himself. “I mean, you would do that _with_ me?”

         Hermann felt a smile breaking slowly across his face. “Well, with worldwide destruction an almost certain alternative… Do I really have a choice?”

         Fear roared in his ears, making Newton’s words sound muffled, far away, but suddenly he was offering his hand up in the space between them. Hermann’s hand met his, struggling for a moment to find a grip, but then their hands were locked together like they were two pieces of a whole and something made his fear dampen. Something made him feel like this was the right thing to do. He gripped a little tighter, and earned a tentative squeeze in return. With a wordless nod, they placed the caps on their heads.

         Hermann only knew about what the drift might feel like based on Newton’s cryptic description of his one-man experiment. Of course, he knew what it _should_ be like, when it was two humans and a Jaeger. His father had designed the program, after all. But this was different. This wasn’t what the technology was meant to do. The idea that this Kaiju drift was naturally spiting his father’s work gave him an almost rebellious rush of adrenaline-induced bravery. Still, as Newt’s finger got closer to the button, he couldn’t help but wish he was still holding tight to his hand.

         “Initiating drift in five… Four… Three… Two…”

         In the last second, uncertainty reared its head. Hermann looked over at Newton to reassure himself, and he saw his partner clutching white-knuckled to the button and squeezing his eyes shut tightly. The man who initiated a solo drift with an alien brain fragment. Still afraid. Doing it anyway. Despite everything, Hermann smiled.

         “One.”

         Nothing could have prepared Hermann for the drift. It was nothing like his father’s projected models he remembered marveling at as a kid. It was nothing like what he heard the pilots going on about. And, thankfully, it was nothing like the nightmarish experience Newt described after his less-than-safe initial experiment. It was a roaring blue, a viscous river, drowning him. In the physical world he instinctively gasped for breath, his arms flailing in the beginnings of a seizure. And then, all of a sudden, through the blue- Newton.

         A small spindly boy with thick-rimmed glasses and a cast on his arm. He flipped through a monster comic book with his good hand. And then the cast disappeared and it was Hermann at a similar age, in a crisply ironed shirt, flipping through a scientific study on probability and patterns in nature. For a moment he saw a glimpse of a terrifying alien maw, all teeth and bioluminescence, and then the shape melted into a harmless children’s toy, being placed purposefully on a shelf full of figures by a teenage collector. Newt again, with his first tattoo laying fresh on his bicep. Hermann’s own bicep, wrapped tightly in a blood pressure cuff at one of his many doctors’ appointments. His reflexes being tested, his left leg barely moving. Then it was a claw, emerging from the ocean, followed by the rest of a creature. Ripping through a building. Newt watching it on TV. Ink staining paper, and then a meeting at an airport. They began to relive their own memories through the other’s eyes now. Feeling with astounding realism what the other felt ten years ago. Five years ago as they learned to dance around each other in a strictly divided lab. Three years ago as the crisis became critical. Two years ago as Newt looked across the room to Hermann holding one piece of chalk in each hand and one in his mouth, brow furrowed in concentration, and through the blue, Hermann vaguely felt something Newt had buried. And Newt saw through Hermann’s eyes as he reached into a cardboard box and his hand came back with a melodica in it. The longing for a family like that. The bruised jealousy, the sadness. The fondness as Newt began to play the instrument. The joy as they pulled on corresponding holiday sweaters. Through the rush of memories, a monster would sometimes claw its way up through the current, but neither of them were scared anymore. Their systems were overloaded with processing something else, and then suddenly they were joined, looking through the same eyes and facing the monster together with the power of two. They were not alone anymore.

         They came out of the drift gasping for breath, noses gushing blood and vision blurred red. Hermann let the cap slip off his head. Newt was shaking slightly in the periphery of his vision, and he made sure the man wasn’t seizing uncontrollably before rushing over to a conveniently placed toilet to vomit. He chided himself for forgetting to bring a handkerchief, but a calming thought echoed to him from far away. _I have one._ And his hand reached backward and there was Newton, pressing a cloth to his trembling palm.

         When he straightened up, leaning heavily on his cane to steady himself, he looked desperately into Newton’s eyes and tried to make sense of the cacophony of thoughts and memories that still remained, bouncing around in his head, stuffed full like a standing room concert in a tiny venue. Hermann had never been to a concert. Still, somehow the simile was natural.

         Newt stared back, and his mouth opened slightly as if to say something, but there was nothing to be said. Hermann understood. _I feel it too. I feel it too._

         On the transport back to the Shatterdome, the two of them sat with their thighs pressed comfortingly against one another. Hermann laced his own hands together to keep them from shaking. Newt tapped his frantically on his leg. The silence was not uncomfortable, because there was no silence.

         _We did it,_ one of them thought, and both of them felt.

         Newton looked up at Hermann with a shaky smile, and Hermann returned it without hesitation.

 

 

 

 

 

         When Hermann heard Raleigh’s voice break the silence on the comms, he was sure that he would never experience a more exhilarating, comforting feeling.

         Three minutes later Newt slung his arm around Hermann’s neck and pressed into his side, and Hermann was corrected.

 

 

 

 

 

         The roof over the lab was littered with stray garbage and rust spots on the concrete. Still, they sat together near the edge, Hermann holding a comically large cask of whiskey and Newt holding his guitar. Celebration throughout the Shatterdome floated up to greet them, but they didn’t feel left out. They had a lot to process still, and it was better to celebrate alone. Or together. The two were hard to discern now.

         “So what now?” Newt asked, voice hoarse. He reached over to find Hermann already offering him the bottle.

         “I suppose we are to go back home now,” Hermann answered as Newt drank slowly. “Live the lives we used to have. Find apartments. Get teaching jobs again.”

         “They’re just gonna send us off, just like that?”

         Another perfectly coordinated pass of the booze. Hermann winced after he drank and it made Newt smile.

         “What else is there to do?”

         “It just feels… Abrupt. I can’t find a place to live in that amount of time. I’ll have to move back in with my dad for a while or something.”

         Hermann’s mouth twisted. “I suppose you’re right. Maybe it wouldn’t be impossible to find a place for rent in that time-“

         “Why don’t you go home to your family too?” Newton asked, but he already knew the answer.

         “They don’t want to see me, I’m afraid. I’d hate to impose like that.”

         “Of course they want to see you. They love you no matter what.”

         Hermann wanted to ask how Newt could be so sure, but he knew that answer too. Newt eyed the bottle, and Hermann held it out and tipped it against his lips for him, already warm with alcohol and adrenaline. Newt’s eyes didn’t leave his as he drank, and Hermann brought the bottle back to himself for a sip.

         Newt squirmed on the cold concrete, scooting up to dangle his legs precariously over the edge, nestling his guitar comfortably in his lap. He reached over the instrument and strummed a chord, and it filled Hermann with a foreign sense of familiarity. His eyes slid closed, exhausted from work and woozy with drink as Newt began to pluck away. Hermann had never heard the song and he found himself recognizing the tune.

         Newt sang under his breath, pitchy and hoarse and uneasy, and it was the most beautiful sound Hermann had ever heard. As the lyrics came he knew them too, but the memory wasn’t his. It was a band from Newton’s adolescence, and Hermann felt like a knobby-kneed teenager again, unsure of his step.

         “It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right,” Newt sang softly, looking out into the horizon where homemade fireworks were going off with whoops and hollers and no regards for safety protocols. “I hope you’ve had the time of your life.”

         Hermann smirked but it had no bite to it. “Don’t you know anything else, something that isn’t from your raucous music taste?”

         Newt scoffed and Hermann brought the bottle up to his lips again, and then to Newt’s as the latter still strummed away at his guitar. The music changed, and this tune struck Hermann’s own memory. Newt eyed the bottle as Hermann’s hands tightened around it.

         “Drink with me,” Newt sang, ever softer somehow. “To days gone by. To the life that used to be.”

         When their eyes met there was no awkward tension, no silence between them and the bridge of their minds. Hermann moved closer instinctually, the music luring him in with childhood memories that made his eyes well up involuntarily. Newt felt the bittersweetness and his eyes shone too.

         “At the shrine of friendship never say die.”

         Hermann began to mouth the lyrics too, barely audible, not technically singing. Joining.

         “May the wine of friendship never run dry.”

         “Here’s to you,” Newt sang with a nod to his partner, who held the bottle up in return.

         “And here’s to me,” Hermann sang, surprisingly on tune. His smile was soft and nostalgic and something else he couldn’t quite place. As Newt kept plucking away at the strings absently, Hermann couldn’t help but laugh softly. “I never pegged you as a man of the classics.”

         “Are you kidding me?” Newt replied enthusiastically. “I love musicals. Theatre is the shit. I’m more of a School of Rock guy myself, obviously, but you have to appreciate where it all started.”

         “My father used to take me to the theatre,” Hermann said. “We saw Les Miserables when I was twelve. I fell in love instantly.”

         Newt softened keenly at the words. “I used to want to play Grantaire, but I can’t carry a tune.”

         “You seem the type.”

         With a smile, Hermann fixed his attention back on the distant fireworks. The music faded at one point but he didn’t notice. He hummed to himself, songs from Les Miserables that he remembered hearing as a boy, becoming enamored with. He settled on Bring Him Home and it seemed fitting. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he felt a hand on his. He looked over to find Newt grasping it desperately, his guitar set gently aside. He had been staring, this whole time his eyes had just been trained on the man next to him, outlined in the bursts of red from the fireworks. His eyes still shone and made Hermann dizzy.

         “Come home with me,” Newt said as if it was the easiest thing in the world.

         Hermann struggled for words. “I beg your pardon?”

         “Come home with me,” Newt urged again, and when he laced his fingers through Hermann’s it felt right. “You’re afraid of going back to your parent’s house. Come to mine. Dad will let us stay until we can find a place. You can meet him, and you can meet my uncle too. They already love you. You can eat Passover seder with us, you can meet my cousins. We’ll figure out the rest when we get there.”

         The proposal stole Hermann’s breath, and with it his words. He gaped silently at Newt, and vaguely registered his hand squeezing his own as a silent plea. He could feel the sincerity. The fondness. The-

         “Please,” Newt breathed.

         “Yes,” Hermann whispered back without hesitation.

         When Newt wrapped his arms around Hermann’s neck, he could feel the smaller man’s shuddering breath, his jumping nerves, his relief. Hermann’s hands gripped tightly to the back of Newt’s leather jacket as Newt scrambled to get as close as possible, fitting himself between splayed legs, burying his face in the scratchy wool of a sweater he used to tease relentlessly for. When he breathed in, he couldn’t imagine why he ever made fun.

         They stayed like that for what may have been eternity, for all either cared. The fireworks had stopped as far as they were concerned, and they could see and feel and hear nothing but each other as they clung tight and remembered the blue space, meeting each other there and coming back changed. Newt broke the silence first.

         “Have you read Les Mis?” He asked, and it threw Hermann off guard. “Like, the book?”

         “Of course,” he replied quizzically.

         “Okay, yeah, me too.” His hands were still at Hermann’s neck, his thumbs brushing the jawline tentatively. “So do you get what I mean if I told you that you were like… The Enjolras to my Grantaire?”

         Hermann laughed and his eyes crinkled and it almost knocked Newt over then and there. His thumbs pressed a little harder. Hermann’s hands were at his waist.

         “Yes, I understand.”

         “You don’t have to come home with me if you don’t want,” Newt said nervously. “Or you can, and then if you find a place you can leave and I’ll find my own place. But… If you wanted-“

         “I know. I know,” Hermann said, and Newt knew it was the truth. “I do.”

         “Really?”

         “If you will permit it.”

         Newt’s smile nearly broke his face in half as he nestled back in against Hermann’s neck. A hand came up to brush through his hair, stiff with days-old gel. Newt turned his head inward to nose at Hermann’s jaw. When Newt straightened up and pressed his lips against Hermann’s shaven cheek, it was both a surprise and the least surprising thing he’d ever experienced. When he returned the kiss to Newt’s forehead, Newt felt the very same way.

 

 

 

 

 

_Dear Dad and Uncle Illia,_

_Do we have room for one more?_

**Author's Note:**

> These goddamn bois took over my life. Hope you enjoyed my first post to this humble site. @ Steven DeKnight Let The Gay Scientists Kiss


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